Day Late on Minova, Anti-Press VOA Uses Mic Grabbing Ladsous Spox, FUNCA Objects

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, April 12 -- After the UN admittedly gave its answer to Inner City Press' April 11 question about the 126 rapes in Minova by the Congolese Army to Reuters and AFP before responding to Inner City Press a full day later, Inner City Press formally objected. Transcript here, and below.

  And after that, the most derivative of state media, Voice of America, chugged in with the same story, no critique of the UN, just a different Ladsous spokesman.

  Ironically Ladsous took all three scribes -- VOA's Margaret Besheer, Reuters' Louis Charbonneau and AFP's Tim Witcher -- out into the hallway with him on November 27, after refusing on camera to answer Inner City Press'questions about the Minova rapes. Video here.

  Then on December 18, the spokesman today quoted by VOA's Besheer, Andre-Michel Essoungou, followed Ladsous' direction to seize the UN Television microphone to try to avoid Inner City Press' questions about the rapes. Video here.

Supposedly, UN official Stephane Dujarric spoke to Essoungou about the seizure of the mic of UNTV, which Dujarric is supposed to oversee. But nothing was ever said publicly, further emboldening Ladsous.

  It was to Dujarric that at Besheer's urging Voice of America's Steve Redisch wrote on June 20, 2012 asking that Inner City Press' accreditation be “reviewed.” Besheer wrote that her colleagues at Reuters and AFP were included to go the same route, with the same "tenor."

  Dujarric and those above him in the Department of Public Information have yet to institute any rules of due process for such complaints, thereby encouraging frivolous stealth complaints like those filed March 8, 2103 by AFP's Witcher and Charbonneau's underling at Reuters, Michelle Nichols.

  Witcher went so far as to complaint to UN Security about how Inner City Press asked Ladsous a question about the Minova rapes. Something is deeply wrong in the UN and this part of its press corps, and their enablers and wannabe friends.

Footnote: at the Broadcast Board of Governors, which purports to oversee VOA, Dana Perino is leaving, and Matthew C. Armstrong is nominated to take her seat. 

Records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act from BBG showed Perino to at least be asking questions about Redisch and David Ensor's censorship moves. But will she now speak out? Will Armstrong?

BBG has been sitting more months on a FOIA request it (or Besheer, intentionally) mishandled. Now another request has been made. Watch this site.

From the UN's April 12 noon briefing transcript:

Inner City Press: Eduardo, I wanted to ask you about your statement on the Minova rapes.

Deputy Spokesperson Eduardo Del Buey: Yes?

Inner City Press: I asked yesterday, you said you would get back, and here you are at the next noon briefing with it. So, I wanted to ask you two questions about it and something about process. One, when you say several have been arrested, yesterday I asked you whether that means three, and the way it is reported, a sub-lieutenant, a corporal and a soldier of no rank. So does it remain the fact that only three people have been arrested for 126 rapes? And I also wanted to ask you to name, finally name the battalions. There has been a lot of back and forth, or DPKO [Department of Peacekeeping Operations] wouldn’t name the battalions until… now, it seems like it has reached a stage, so I wanted to know if you could give the numbers. And on process, I wanted to ask you, although I appreciate you reading out the statement today, I obviously saw last night and today stories on Reuters and AFP [Agence France-Presse] where Kieran Dwyer of DPKO chose to, in fact, give precisely this answer, maybe a little less, to favored media, and I wonder, what does it say? I want to know, I guess, how is it acceptable…

Deputy Spokesperson Del Buey: Matthew, Matthew, let me stop you right there.

Inner City Press: Please. Okay.

Deputy Spokesperson: There is no question of favored media. The media…

Inner City Press: What happened?

Deputy Spokesperson: The media involved telephoned DPKO yesterday afternoon. We had just received this information on an if-asked basis, and DPKO gave it to them in response to their questions.

Inner City Press: And not to the person who asked the question here? That’s what I don’t understand.

Deputy Spokesperson: Well…

Inner City Press: This happened about three or four times, so that’s why I am using the phrase. And I want to say to you, if I asked a question here and you have an answer to it, please give it to me at least at the same time that you give it to others. Otherwise, it looks like an attempt to favor media that didn’t ask the question, or who write very favouable stories. For example, is this issue, Mr. Ladsous for four months didn’t answer any questions on these rapes. Now, belatedly after a BBC [British Broadcasting Corporation] exposé, there is this announcement, and the question is, what follow-up is there going to be? Is Ban Ki-moon comfortable with Mr. Ladsous’ addressing of these 126 rapes?

Deputy Spokesperson: Matthew, the answer we gave you over the past few months was that, while an investigation was in progress we were not going to be commenting on the aspects of the investigation. As I said here, the investigation has been launched, over 400 testimonies have been received, several arrests have been made, and a number of those officers allegedly involved have been suspended and put at the disposal of the military prosecutor. So, the investigations continue apace, they are in the hands of the military prosecutor. You may want to contact the military prosecutor’s office in Kinshasa to find out what they are doing about it and what more information they have.

Inner City Press: Which battalions?

Deputy Spokesperson: I cannot give you that information.

Inner City Press: Why not?

Deputy Spokesperson: I don’t have it.

Inner City Press: What I am really emphasizing to you, you’re the Spokesman’s Office. If a question is asked here, now that you said that you had the answer, I would really encourage you to give the answer to the people that ask the questions. It just seems like a set-up, and this happened literally three or four times in a row. I can see exactly what is happening and I object to it.

Deputy Spokesperson: We’ve heard you, Matthew.

Inner City Press: Thank you very much.

As Voice of America Takes US Line on Somalia, Seeks Expulsions at UN, Evades FOIA

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, February 10 – How closely is “Voice of America” controlled by the US government, of which it is an agency, subject to the Freedom of Information Act?

Just after the US State Department formally recognized the government of Somalia, on February 9 Voice of America published a piece about the upcoming UN Security Council review of the mission it authorized there.

The piece is built nearly entirely around quotes from UN envoy Augustine Mahiga: he is even the “source” for the fact that the Security Council will consider Somalia this week. 

  But the Council's February 14 session has been on the Council's public program of work since at least February 4.

Amazingly, the Voice of America Somalia piece did not mention in any way the Somali government's prosecution and conviction of journalist Abdiaziz Abdnur Ibrahim for having interviewed, and not even published about, a woman alleging gang rape by the Somali security forces.

This prosecution, and one year prison sentence, has been lambasted from all over, including for example by the EU's Catherine Ashton. But Voice of America, owned by the US government which just recognized the Somali government, does not mention the rape, prosecution or convictions.

Inner City Press, which Voice of America's Steve Redisch ask the UN to throw out of the UN in June 2012, has filed several Freedom of Information Act requests, most recently to understand and report on the relationship between VOA and the State Department, represented on the Broadcasting Board of Governors which oversees VOA and other state media.

  As reflected in a FOIA appeal which was just granted – that is, Inner City Press prevailed – on February 4, Voice of America's UN bureau chief Margaret Besheer was directed to conduct a search of her e-mail on the subject of the FOIA request, months ago. 

   Why did she initially refuse to? Is it appropriate? What will be the repercussions if the second search is in bad faith, as the first one was? Why would BBG expect anything else?

   Voice of America's initial FOIA response showed that it adopted a “do not answer Inner City Press” policy -- then used the re-submission of follow up questions as a basis to ask the UN to dis-accredit Inner City Press.

  Besheer's already released e-mails show how she used, or was used by, the UN Correspondents Association Executive Committee (particularly ongoing or Permanent members Reuters and Agence France Presse / AFP) to try to get Inner City Press thrown out of the UN.

  After inquiries from Capitol Hill, VOA officials David Ensor and Steve Redisch told the BBG members including, for example, Dana Perino that the request to dis-accredit Inner City Press has been inappropriate.

  But the request was never withdrawn. Besheer stepped off the UNCA Executive Committee, on which the officials are elected without competition, and nominated her successor. 

  Another BBG affiliate gained representation on the UNCA Executive Committee. And Besheer apparently remains on the board of UNCA's own affiliate, the Dag Hammarskjold Fund for Journalism.

  A counterfeit social media account with which both of these are involved has tried to mock those journalists joining the new Free UN Coalition for Access , most recently a woman alleging sexual harassment, pervasively as “non-media activists.” 

  But is Voice of America independent media? Does its UN bureau engage in actual journalism? There are answers we are awaiting from Washington.

   Now in New York as the UNCA-dominated move of the press corps back into the renovated UN headquarters building begins, it has emerged that Voice of America and the two other State Department affiliates all have different offices: a total of three. 

  Meanwhile the UN put another country's wire service into a shared office, then a “photocopy closet.”

   The UN checked and learned that at the State Department in DC's Foggy Bottom, the three BBG affiliates are all in a single office.

   Why would they get better treatment at the UN then at their parent? Watch this site.

Reuters & AFP Sought Ouster from UN of Inner City Press, UNCA Met with UN Officials, VOA Records under US FOIA Show

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, August 8 -- When the US government broadcaster Voice of America asked the UN on June 20 to "review" the accreditation status of Inner City Press, the UN Correspondents Association's president Giampaolo Pioli and first vice president Louis Charbonneau of Reuters claimed they had nothing to do with the request.

   On June 30, however, the two demanded that Inner City Press withdraw a Freedom of Information Act request it had filed for records related to VOA's complaint, or face a release of a one-sided UNCA report and a subsequent show trial seeking to vote Inner City Press out.

   Inner City Press did not withdraw the FOIA request. It stopped writing about the dispute until now, on August 8, when some 800 pages of documents requested under FOIA were released, while at least 150 pages have been withheld. (An appeal is being prepared).

   Even on first review, the documents show that Reuters and Agence France Presse, among others, were part of the campaign to get Inner City Press thrown out of the UN. They conferred with "UN officials," yet to be named; Reuters conferred with the US Mission to the UN.

  On June 18 at 12:40 pm, VOA's Margaret Besheer e-mailed her editor Steve Redisch that "My Reuters colleaguejust told me his people are probably going to go the same route - to press UN to pull Mr. Lee's UN accreditation."Click here for that e-mail, released August 7 under FOIA.

   The "Reuters colleague" is UNCA president in waitingLou Charbonneau, who expressed outrage at Inner City Press complaining of his byline on unauthorized uncredited use of Inner City Press exclusive reporting, then said he has a policy of not crediting Inner City Press.

   When Besheer, Charbonneau and others -- the names have been redacted -- received a complaint about their censorship campaign that was send to Capitol Hill and to the US Mission to the UN, Besheer recounts that Charbonneau "asked the US Mission" about the complaint. Click here that e-mail, including a threat that Reuters would sue Inner City Press.

  Reuters' threats came after Inner City Press several times requested a copy of the company's policy for crediting the exclusives for other, smaller media from four Reuters officials: Stephen J. Adler, Editor in Chief; Greg McCune, Ethics & Training; Walden Siew, Top News Editor; and Paul Ingrassia, Deputy Editor in Chief.

  Reuters never responded, but rather sought to "press the UN to pull" Inner City Press' accrediation, along with Agence France Presse.

Charbonneau shakes -- on what? -- with Ban Ki-moon, (c) Luiz Rapelotto

   As to Agence France Presse, on June 18 at 12:58 pm, Besheer wrote to VOA's lawyers that

"My AFP colleague asks if they could possibly get the tenor of our letter so they can stay on message and ask In the same way. Their legal dept is in France, so It would be their regional director in Washington contacting UN on their behalf."

  The "AFP colleague" is Timothy Witcher who previously sought to use the UNCA bureaucracy to admonish Inner City Press for an accurate article concerning the French Mission to the UN and Herve Ladsous, the fourth Frenchman in a row to head UN Peacekeeping. 

  They couldn't stop Inner City Press from reporting, so they sought to get it thrown out of the UN.

 On June 11, citing Bloomberg News, Besheer wrote that "UNCA now discussing with UN officials (very quietly) next steps... They will have to step up and do their part -and pull his accreditation. It is my understanding that UN legal dept is now involved." Click here to view this troubling e-mail, regarding which we will have more.

   Who were these UN officials discussing quietly with the UN Correspondents Association the planned ouster from the UN of Inner City Press? 

  The documents produced include a response to VOA's Redisch from UN official Stephane Dujarric, formerly the spokesman for Kofi Annan, referring to Redisch's emailed complaint against Inner City Press of the previous day, stating "Dear Steve, thank you for your email. I will call you later this week. Click here.

  But also on June 21, the records also show, once Inner City Press obtained and published the (first) complaint on the same day it was filed, VOA received nearly immediate inquiries from Capitol Hill about its attack on freedom of the Press and in particular Inner City Press' investigative journalism at the UN.

  On the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which ostensibly oversees VOA, demands were made for copies of Besheer's and her editor Steve Redisch's e-mails.

  In one e-mail, Redisch wonders how the requesters on the Hill would like Inner City Press if it were covering the Senate.

  At the UN, the official to whom the request to "review" Inner City Press was directed, Dujarric, first denounced Inner City Press for obtaining and publishing the request, then ultimately begrudgingly granted Inner City Press a shorter extension of credentials than in previous years, while leaving the VOA threat pending.

  Dujarric's incoming boss Peter Launsky- Tieffenthal has been asked by the New York Civil Liberties Union to describe the UN's process for accrediting journalists, with specific reference to Voice of America's complaint against Inner City Press. Click here for that.

  The UN and UNCA both claim to be unrelated, as regards accrediation. But not only is this UNCA a party to the UN's Media Access Guidelines - the records released today should the submission of UNCA supposedly internal documents to VOA in support of its complaint to try to get Inner City Press expelled by and from the UN. We will have more on this.

  Perhaps most unseemly for the UN, at the heart of the dispute is an attempt by UNCA president Giampaolo Pioli to get removed from the Internet a factually accurate September 21, 2011 Inner City Press story that Pioli in the past rented one of his 12 Manhattan apartments to Palitha Kohona, then the chief of the UN Treaty Section.

  In September 2011 Pioli without first checking with elected UNCA Executive Committee members like Inner City Press granted the request of his former tenant Kohona, now Sri Lanka's Ambassador to the UN, to screen a Sri Lankan government propaganda film denying the very 2009 war crimes that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was forced to commission a report about.

  At the screening Pioli granted, Kohona was joined by General Shavendra Silva, reportedly responsible for 4500 deaths in May 2009, who is now on Ban's Senior Advisory Group on Peacekeeping Operations. Ladsous has refused to answer Inner City Press questions on this, or anything else.

  On June 1, Lynne Weil wrote to three Voice of America officials that UNCA was"moving to expel a member whose apparent aggressiveness in interviewing a UN official prompted a UNCA investigation." E-mail here, emphasis supplied.

  Pioli told Inner City Press to take the story down, or he would get Inner City Press thrown out of the UN.

  The Voice of America documents released today under FOIA make plain that the basis for trying to throw Inner City Press out of the UN was entirely what it wrote or in one case said. 

  Inner City Press commented to Besheer that some on Capitol Hill might question the use of taxpayer money to try to throw an investigative reporter out of the UN. Besheer trumped up this remark as a "threat" -- which VOA has since described as such in the course of the resulting inquiry (on which we'll have more soon.)

  That there would be Congressional interest turned out to be accurate, and within days of the June 20 complaint, VOA's lawyers were preparing a draft memo for the BBG Governors which include, among others, Dana Perino and Hillary Clinton.

  Then it was decided that "less is more." There follow a slew of heavily redacted pages. Inner City Press is preparing a FOIA appeal of these withholdings, and will continue to report on the documents.

  Questions include is it legitimate not only for a US government broadcaster like VOA but global wire services like Reuters and Agence France Presse (which derives over 40% of its income from French government "subscriptions") to meet secretly with UN officials conspiring to get a smaller, investigative web site thrown out of the UN? Watch this site.